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BPS students protest at Northeastern over the amount it pays city in lieu of taxes
By adamg on Thu, 10/18/2018 - 8:48am
The Huntington News reports on a protest aimed at getting Northeastern to increase its voluntary payments in lieu of taxes.
Boston has long asked non-profits to kick in 25% of what they would pay in property taxes if their property were commercial instead of non-profit. Northeastern has always been on the low side of PILOT payments, but says it more than makes up for it in other things, such as annual scholarships for Boston residents attending Northeastern - and the $100 million it put into renovating a city playground (in a statement, the university did not mention that that money also gave it rights to use the playground).
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Comments
Hey
Kids, maybe walk down to the Teacher Union. Thats where most of BPS's budget goes.
Quick tip
If last night's school committee was any indication, students support their teachers and understand that teachers and their representatives are working to make schools better.
I've spoken to some of the student leaders
Offered to sit with them and go over the city and school budget in detail so they could see how the money was getting spent.
Gave them my card and asked them to call me.
Crickets.
More money won't fix what ails BPS.
Not the point.
Based on your response here, it appears the simple article and purpose of the protest has gone well over your head. That's too bad.
The point
Sounds like somebody else needs to take my seminar on municipal finance.
No, that wouldn't be necessary.
Why? Because that's not the point of the protest. I'm sorry you can't understand that. Keep trying, Stevie!
What part of yhis don't u understand
better fund the school system.
It's in the first paragraph moron.
It's about the money.
Making repeated claims people don't understand when it's obvious the joke is on you won't win you many points in whatever game u r playing.
Ignore the Strange Old man Handing out Business Cards to Kids
I don't know, sounds to me like BPS is developing leaders with very good judgment.
Oh hell
I'd rather the old man try to engage with younger generations and learn from them instead of becoming a siloed greedy old boomer like we have running this country now. How often do you think Mitch McConnell talks to 24-year olds with any sincerity?
I live in dread of becoming an old person who doesn't keep making friends with people younger than himself. Shoot me the (expletive) dead if I become crusty, old, and stodgy.
Hey kids!
Let's smoke dope and make out and be irresponsible! Then when we're really hopped up, let's ask Northeastern to increase its voluntary payments! And then, worst of all, let's not call Stevil and ask him to explain stuff to us!
Hey, anon...
Maybe you should re-read the first line of the article since you chose to ignore it in order to share your unrelated and unsolicited opinion with us.
Maybe we need a new PILOT
Maybe they should put together a publicity campaign to get those who went to NU (especially Boston residents) to make donations to BPS as payments in lieu of alumni donations.
What????
You want Boston residents who already pay property taxes to pay additional monies on behalf on NU. That should go over well!
Your reading comprehension could use some work
I'm suggesting that NU alum who already give money to Northeastern on a voluntary basis are asked to instead give the money to BPS to offset how the university mooches off of the city.
(To be in lieu of something is to replace it or substitute for it, so this clarification should not be necessary)
Don't be foolish.
I paid my dues to Northeastern. Over $200k. If Northeastern doesn't know how to properly allocate money back to the municipality, that's not on alumni to fix.
Let's play charades !!!!
The city could like get there 25% anytime they want, but folks it is all a charade for the rich and connected to get what we want and for the government to make regular people, (yes I'm looking at you taxpayers!) think they are on your side.
It's like when me and my besties go out for cocktails and a night on the town. We aren't 20 year olds at Northeastern anymore on Seeking Arrangment looking for Sugar Daddy's, we want real men with real wallets so we wear Spanx. Why do you think Sara Blakely is the first self made female Billionaire ???
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-fabulous-life-of-spanx-billionaire-s...
#metoo
We make you think you are getting full representation, but the reality is different when you peel back and peek inside. But since LPH is in charge of the information you are allowed to know....welll......
Northeastern hired that funny guy John Tobin to ease the process through. The City gave them that park to expand their campus, let them build new buildings and dorms all over the place. The City could make them pay up anytime they wanted.....a few permits being with held, etc., etc. The city claims they have no money but are talking about building new parks in the Seaport where the new urban wealth (and cocktail hotspots!) is and claiming they have no money to maintain the parks they have. How easy would it have been to say to Northeastern....we will let you have this park but you have to pay 25% PILOTS every year?
Speaking of which, let's get 21Pilots over to Fenway next year! There new album is great.
It truly is amazing what rubes people are. We sit up in our box and laugh about it all the time as we collect all the money !!! At least 2 more home games at Fenway. #DoDamage
What do you put in your coffee in the morning....?
Because I'm not sure if I want some or not Linda.
I Get
That these posts are supposed to be hilarious satire but the writing is just too bad to make any sense of it.
But ya gotta admit
That was one of the better posts.
Almost spit my coffee over the sugar daddy and spanx comment.
I like the posts
Even though I rarely get through most of them.
I honestly don’t know why people get so worked up about this poster. If you see the name, just skip over the comment. No one is required to read every comment here (with the possible exception of Adam himself.)
just stop already
Create a blog where you can obsessively monitor the single digit views and boost your self-esteem when one of your friends comments on how "hilarious" you are.
You bring nothing to the table here.
Don’t these pawns, I mean BPS
Don’t these pawns, I mean BPS students, realize that most expenses at these colleges and universities ultimately get passed along to the college students. Are these BPS students planning on going to college? Wake up, you will be paying this tax in a few years when you (maybe) go to college.
Northeastern's endowment is
Northeastern's endowment is about $800 million dollars. They can certainly afford to pay their fair share to the city without raising tuition. The school that has paid its president over $3 million per year can't get away with crying poor.
Aoun is set at just over the
Aoun is set at just over the 1 million mark to kept the facts straight. Trust me, it is still egregious as an alum myself. Proof is in the pudding on the other hand, jumping nearly 100 spots on the US News rankings since his tenure as Pres. does merit some sort of compensation. That apartment next to the State House would be on my docket as well if I were him.
#Robotproof #BeanpotChamps
In 2013 his compensation was
In 2013 his compensation was over 3 million. I was referring to that.
NU's president used to be
NU's president used to be president of Univ. of Southern Calif., nicknamed Univ. of Spoiled Children, one of the most expensive in the country. NU used to be thought of as higher education for blue collar and working class folks -- my father attended night school and got his degree in engineering there, my uncle got his degree at NU, older generations of my in-laws' family earned degrees at NU and ALL went on to have successful careers. They were all from lower income/ working class familes. The current president has made Northeastern inaccessible to anyone but upper middle class families and students who want to take out $200K loans: and this guy can't contribute NU's fair share?
Fun fact
Northeastern University developed out of night classes held for working folk at the Huntington YMCA.
How do colleges get away with this argument
If a business said the same thing, they would be attacked by professors and students as white supremacist patriarchy crony capitalist banksters.
Attention faux socialists: if trickle-down is ok for you, it's ok for the rest of us too.
NEU already offers 100%
NEU already offers 100% financial aid and college prep to BPS students students in the neighborhoods bordering the university if they apply to NEU.
WTF is with public school teachers using other peoples' kids as political pawns?
No wonder so many BPS schools are underperforming. The teachers are too busy herding the kids into activism rather than educating.
Try reading the article. The
Try reading the article. The protest was organized by a youth group that meets after school. And one of the students quoted in the article is a senior, who is probably 18, and therefore an adult. I dare you to call him a pawn to his face. There were even Northeastern students at the protest.
NU controls the fenway
NU controls the fenway neighborhood. It should pay for everything it has sucked out of it.
that playground deal was one of the most disgusting
giveaways of a public asset that has ever occurred. Shameful. The entire park was reconfigured based on Northeastern's athletic requirements and they've basically monopolized the most desirable playtimes. And to make matters worse, Northeastern replaced the grass with the plastic-and-vulcanized-rubber-granule crap that's been shown to increase cancer rates in the adolescents playing on it.
And they dont even have a
And they dont even have a football team any more.
Wait, you mean
The junkie-infested rust pit that was behind the tennis courts on Camden Street?
Better granulated rubber than dirt and used needles, which is what it used to be carpeted with.
Dear next Mayor: here is your campaign
Eliminate non-profit exemption, use the money to cut taxes for businesses and residents.
A world in which pedophile
A world in which pedophile cults I mean churches are taxed is one big step closer to utopia.
Don't have to wait till next
Don't have to wait till next mayoral race. Gonzalez is proposing that on a statewide level, while Baker is against.
Next Mayor: don't do what Gonzalez did
Gonzalez blew it by saying he was going to spend the money he raised from the colleges.
Raise their r.e. taxes and cut our r.e. taxes. Simple.
State, not city
tax-exemption of non-profits is not a city issue
Yeah Northeastern, we need
Yeah Northeastern, we need this money to hand over to GE and other billion dollar companies to lure them to the squalid seaport area where no businesses want to be unless they are given corporate welfare.
How about Northeastern
and other colleges in the city allow their students to tutor in the BPS schools in exchange for a break in tuition in lieu of paying money to the city. The college students get good experience, the BPS students get more help to succeed and the city doesn't have to shell out more money to help BPS.
Northeastern has money
They can spend the $50 I paid them to apply in 2001 which was not accepted, because my application was simply a sham so that they could boost their US News rankings.
What a complete (expletive) trash organization. I don't care how noble they think their cause is. All I wanted to do was give them money so that I could take Joe Castiglione's class, and they couldn't even make the sale. Complete pissstain and a cancer on our city.
And I don't even believe that they (or anybody) should be taxed. But if you're going to monopolize all that land and all the resources that they do, at a bare-ass minimum, don't con 18 year olds out of money. It's honestly not difficult to not be a scam artist. Just don't (expletive) do it.
Damn yo
Those are some hella sour grapes
Nah
Sour grapes would be if I said "whatever, their academic program probably sucks anyway." My rejection didn't dim my view of the teachers and the classes, it dimmed my view of their disingenuous trash administration.
I hate that I was suckered into believing that one should apply to American colleges after attending high school. Why a teacher would tell a kid to do that at this point is beyond me. Canada, England, Australia. Hop a plane, kids. Let American universities starve.
When people ask me where I went to school, I take great pride in telling them "Burlington High School" instead of naming any college. Best choice I ever made was taking a job instead of borrowing money to attend Champlain after they accepted me.
I was going to ask how you got turned down by NU, but
"All I wanted to do was give them money so that I could take Joe Castiglione's class, and they couldn't even make the sale. Complete pissstain and a cancer on our city." -I think we can see the problem. You don't seem familiar with higher ed what it is that they do. Let them go their way and you go yours.
I know what they do
They invest in real estate and teach a few classes on the side. Also, they lie to teenagers and appear to take pride in doing so.
If by Invest in Real Estate you mean bring up Huntington Ave
when no one else go near it, then sure. They've helped to stabilize an area that used to be very dangerous. Half a century later Boston real estate is through the roof and that gives you one more thing to be bitter about. You can't seriously still be mad at a college because they didn't want you hanging around campus to meet a sports hero 17 years ago.
Two things
1) Are you suggesting that I would not have taken the coursework seriously? All I've wanted to really do since I was 14 is broadcasting. They have a station, an actual PBP guy as a professor, and a co-op program with a track record of placing people at stations in a Top 10 market. I would have been all in.
2) I'm mad about the disingenuity. I get that colleges can't, won't, and don't sell the product to all prospective buyers.
But when you seek applications just because that's a metric used by some newsmagazine for dumbass old boomers and scared yuppies without any genuine intent to increase admissions, and charge $50 in the process, that's just straight consumer fraud, man.
I've made a nice life since, and I'm good, but I'm going to speak out against their crap before they con another teenager.
Explain
How so? Someone has to take the time to receive the application, read it, review it, make comments on it, and sort it into the recommend or no pile. Or even in an 'could be good, let's review it in comparison to x' pile. And then they have meetings going over the applicants/applications. The reviewers are your advocate for hopefully attending said school.
It's called overhead. Your application isn't reviewed for free, my friend. As a libertarian you should understand that fact.
I know that
But the labor didn't cost $50.
Overhead
Is not just labor.
Maybe protest about corporate tax breaks first?
... like multi billion dollar corporations who receive local and state tax credits, and the politicians who rigged up such deals for them, rather than existing not for profits. Remember, GE, Vertex, and etc. want to be in Boston in part because of the area’s universities, not the other way around.
Here are the details
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/imce-uploads/2018-08/fy18_pil...
Northeastern doesn't have any community credits (no idea how that is calculated), and BU and Harvard have huge community credits listed. Some interesting things to note ICA has 0 contributions and BC's overall % is lower than NEU.
Also note worthy is BU also
Also note worthy is BU also has no football team even though they had at one time the old Braves Field ( baseballers but a sports emporium with history ! )